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Raiders Trade Amari Cooper to Cowboys

Well, the Cowboys finally got the receiver they needed, but boy did they pay a lot for him. Dallas will send a first-round pick to Oakland for a year and a half of Amari Cooper. Cooper was a Pro Bowl wide receiver his first two years, but his numbers have fallen to 70 catches for 960 yards and eight touchdowns in the last season and a half (20 games). That's still pretty good, and he'll be the best receiver on the Cowboys, but he's getting out of a bad situation and into... another bad situation, at least as far as offensive scheme? Meanwhile, you only get a year and a half of Cooper, and that fifth-year option in 2019 is a top-20 salary cap number for a wide receiver. The Raiders now have three first-round picks next year: their own, Chicago's, and Dallas'.

Comments

1) Oak now has 5 #1s in a two year period. Interesting to see what Gruden does with them, though I certainly fear the worst.

2) If the post-season is, to some degree, a crap shoot, and the Cowboys expect to steadily improve this year as they get their health and act back together, then given that they lost to the division leader by this much, this seems a more-reasonable trade.

Seems low, I know, but (a) If Gruden hates him, then he has little value to Oak, and (b) he has looked awful since that 12-4 season. His play, plus that contract, has the stink of Flacco on him, and without the ring...

Yea, if Gruden wants to get him out the door quickly before the deadline, I could see him lowering the price to a #2. I could see a team seeing the strong arm and 2016 tape, and believing that a change of scenery could put his career back on track.

Gruden spent his whole broadcast career trying to make himself out to be a genius young QB whisperer, and now he's got a boatload of first round picks to snag his favorite in the draft this year. It would be 100% in character to dump Carr just so that he can pick some vanity project of a rookie QB this year.

I mean I'm not a Gruden fan either, but if he thinks Carr is a bust then he should get whatever he can and use those resources towards picking a new QB with more potential. Dumping all this salary and gaining draft picks in return is a sound strategy, if they can pull it off. Especially for demonstrably mediocre players like Carr or Cooper, who they just got a first-rounder for somehow. Khalil Mack is on a different level so I agree less with that, but if their plan was to tank all along he never would've stuck around so trade makes sense there too.

I can absolutely see him doing this—I think the combination of cap relief over the next few years, being able to have “his” guy (at rookie contract prices), and being on a ten year contract will overwhelm any arguments against it.

And now the story just hit the media that supposedly the whole Raiders team hates Carr because he's a whiny crybaby who cries a lot. Totally feels like a Gruden plant to justify trading away a popular QB just so that he can draft whichever QB has the firmest handshake at the Combine this year.

You are reading the table incorrectly, accidentally looking at the "pre-June 1 cut" numbers. There are no numbers in the table that specifically covers a trade now, but post-June 1 trade is the easiest to base it on, although just looking at the contract is probably even easier (click the player in the table).

Carr got a $12.5 million roster bonus which was prorated over 5 years. The remaining $7.5 million a year would be dead money and would be accelerated. Other than the money they've already paid out this year (6/16 ths of his salary + the full $15 million roster bonus), they are off the hook for the rest of the contract. Those obligations pass to the next club.

End result is that they've paid him $17.9 million of his $22.5 million contract. That $17.9 million counts against the cap this year and I guess you could argue that it is dead money, in a sense, as soon as the player is no longer with the team. Or you could argue that the only money that should be considered dead is the $9.4 million (10/16ths of the roster bonus) that they wouldn't have been on the hook for had the roster bonus been regular salary. On top of that comes the $10 million remaining prorated bonus money (this year and next three years, at $2.5 million each).

Total cap charge 2018 in the event of a trade before the next game: $27.9 million.

That's not much more than what he would have counted against the cap this year anyway ($25.0 million).

Raiders are now really set up for their rebuild. Three first rounders in one draft, two the next year. I know everyone hates Gruden, but one advantage of this situation is that since he's going to be around for ten years the Raiders can afford to make decisions with the long term in mind, in contrast to the perpetual win now at the expense of later approach that plagues so many of the poorly run teams in the NFL.

Amari Cooper for a first is really ridiculous when you remember Josh Gordon cost the Pats just a fifth. I suppose you'd rather have Cooper than Gordon, but definitely not even remotely close to the extent of the difference in value between a first and a fifth.

I don't have any respect for Gruden; if that qualifies as hate, so be it. There's nothing in his record as a developer of young QBs or as GM (once he got personnel control) at Tampa to indicate that he will be able to used them effectively on young players. Assuming he actually wants young players, which I question. I also don't like the way he's thrown Reggie under the bus by pretending that Reggie has had power to make any personnel decisions since he was hired - it tends to confirm the assertion of some of his old players that he's a weasel.

Your're right that the lack of patience of many teams (and their fans) is a problem, and the ten year contract does mean Gruden can afford to think long term. For this to mean anything, Gruden will have to adapt himself to the current form of the game, and the current generation of players. I have serious doubts he will do either.

Having said all that, the Perversity Theorem of the Universe dictates that Gruden will lift the Lombardi the first season in Vegas.

Plus, he apparently lied to the team about not trading Cooper, and he's losing credibility and trust from the players. Based on what happened with McKenzie, I would be shocked if this isn't true.

I feel the same way about Gruden as I do Sean McDermott: guys who are shockingly inept at their jobs, with bad processes that looked bad from a mile away. In a way, their results this year make them heroes, and not just for the schadenfreude. It's encouraging to see dumb people fail, for a change.

Hue Jackson escapes this category because he seems inept in a non-threatening way, making it cute and nice when the Browns win, whereas Gruden and McD seem inept in an angry, mean way, like Gregg Whatever (Browns D coordinator)

I'd never quite thought about things that way, but I'm totally with you. Jim Tomsula was the ultimate non-threatening incompetent guy. He was in so far over his head, and it was kind of fun to root for a guy who obviously had no business ever holding a job higher than position coach. I agree about Hue, and I'd stick Marc Trestman and maybe Marvin Lewis in there too. Some guys just have a low ceiling as a head coach, but at least they seem to be trying to do the right things, and that's worth something.

I think the ultimate mark of the really hateable coaches is a really deep-seated stubbornness, which manifests itself as refusal to adapt to their situation or take in new information. McDermott inherited a perfectly serviceable mobile quarterback, and jettisoned him in favor of a couple of profoundly shitty pocket passers, due to a deep-rooted insistence that THE QUARTERBACK MUST PLAY FROM THE POCKET. Jon Gruden is jettisoning all of his good players because he has decided that he must build a late-nineties roster because STATS ARE FOR NERDS. I'd throw Bill O'Brien in there too, I still can't get over naming Tom "Stripsack" Savage your opening day starter just because ROOKIES GOTTA EARN IT or whatever. Greg Schiano was the ultimate hateable head coach, since he combined that stubbornness with a super-toxic THE LOUDER I YELL THE BETTER I'M COACHING attitude.

Marvin Lewis absolutely does not deserve inclusion in any list of inept NFL coaches. He is 129-115 in the regular season as a HC which is eminently respectable, even before factoring in that he has been coaching a franchise with notoriously cheap ownership.

I guess the 0-7 playoff record is where the ridicule for Lewis stems from, and yes, perhaps the Bengals should have moved on from him by now. But lumping him in among those other guys you listed is frankly absurd.

A. Cooper drop machine and nto winning enough matchuyps to get iopen enough for D. Carr to throw to him. Ecellenet move by Raiders trading him for a 1st round pcik. Go nn a celebrate this move while watchinmg Gaints-Falcs tonight. Niec easy game to watch between 2 crap teams. noithing personal on line. Fantasy team may once again have 2nd highest score but still lose (sheeesh is this getting old and dumb). not in any NFL pick em groups/office pools. getting sierra Nevada pale ale in a little whiel. will live tweet during mnf game whatever that means

The trade was far more worth to the Raiders than to the Cowboys. Sure, they lost another receiver, and now the corps is leaded by Jordy Nelson and Martavis Bryant (Temporarily anyway), but now the Raiders have truckloads of draft picks. That means this will be a couple of rebuilding and tanking years (Even if Gruden doesn't want you to believe that). On the other hand, why you trade a 1st(!!!) round pick for a receiver that doesn't have reliable hands? Why not a 3rd or 4th rounder? The Cowboys receiving corps is definitely not great (Despite what they might tell you), so adding Cooper is a nice addition. However, a) You threw a 1st round pick, which is dumb unless you are going to get a proven guy that can be a franchise cornerstone (Example: Mack, Khalil), b) Your offense's problems go beyond the personnel. Overly conservative playcalling and overly predictable playcalling will do that to your team.

In other news, Patrick Peterson wants to be traded. The Cardinals are refusing.

Haven't watched enough Cooper to have a strong opinion, but if it is true that his ball skills suck, well, there are few things more frustrating as a NFL fan than watching a receiver who can't catch the effin' ball, while consuming significant cap space. It's like hiring a new receptionist who shows up for work late 4 days in the first week; the most fundamental element of providing value is so deficient that there's no point in going further in evaluation.

I always liked the Mike Holmgren story, upon working out Favre after the trade, and Holmgren asking Favre why he was tossing at about 75% of capacity, and Favre saying he didn't want to overpower the receivers. Holmgren reportedly replied "You just throw it on target, as hard as you want. If our guys can't catch it, we'll get new guys!".

I've mostly happened to only see Cooper's big games, so I don't know what everyone is talking about with his bad hands, but from descriptions he seems like a younger, even less reliable Demaryius Thomas.

It'd be interesting to see it happen. Of course, you've got to have the setup to be able to develop and give equal practice time to all three. But with QBs such a commodity you could likely get your picks back with interest.

Remembering that Jimmy Johnson picked up his ex-college starter Steve Walsh in the 1989 supplemental draft after they'd taken Troy Aikman #1. Think Walsh won more games as starter that rookie year (or rather he was the starter in their lone win) but eventually they traded him off to New Orleans in 1991 to be Bobby Hebert's replacement. I don't know what happened to him after that - never really heard much about him again.

If I remember correctly, he was never able to supplant Hebert as the starter in New Orleans. He eventually became a veteran journeyman backup. He was an injury replacement for Erik Kramer on the '94 Bears and won a bunch of games (although he didn't play all that great....he was allergic to throwing downfield), including a stunning road upset of the Vikings in the playoffs. Was Trent Dilfer's backup in Tampa for a while, after which he kind of faded away.

One interesting thing about this and Carr.
I was thinking today, there aren't many NFL teams that are obviously going to be in a position to invest in QB in this draft. Unlike last years, NYG is the only really obvious move. Then there are a bunch of teams where a move could be made (Was, Den, Jax, Cin, Mia, No, Ne). Lots of opportunities for good teams to make smart plays to set up the future.

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